How to Make a Week's Worth of Amazing Lunches in 2 Hours

This story is part of the 2018 Feel Good Food Plan, our two-week mind-body-belly plan for starting the year off right.

Even when I am not in January reset mode, Sundays are all about getting food together for the week. Lunches and weekday dinners are more about assembly than actual cooking. Just two hours of prep can set my entire family up for most of the week. It all starts with thinking ahead, not about specific meals, but about the components I plan to pull from. That way, I don't feel locked into figuring out the exact recipe I want to cook each day of the week. While the recipes below work for numerous lunch combinations, they can definitely be dinner as well.

Once the shopping is done and everything is put away, start with the longest cooking item, i.e. the Slow-Roasted Extra-Juicy Make-Ahead Chicken. I roast a chicken every other week since it's a versatile element in sandwiches, salads, and soups. While the chicken is roasting, I chop whatever vegetables I want to roast for the week. Mixed Roasted Vegetables like carrots, fennel, and red onion will hold up throughout a week getting knocked around in the fridge, and are just as good cold as they are warmed up.

While the chicken and vegetables are going, toast off any nuts you plan to use for the week, since that will add way more flavor and better texture than raw nuts will. Think of the Nori, Almond, and Chile Crumble as more of a blueprint than a recipe. If you don’t feel like adding one of the elements (you haven’t hurt my feelings if you skip the nori), the recipe will still have plenty of crunchy intensity for finishing any of the other lunch elements.

If there has ever been a moment to buy a rice cooker, this is it, and it isn’t for cooking rice (necessarily). Whole grains (i.e. barley, black quinoa, farro, spelt, wheat berries, more) can be cooked on the “brown rice” setting—if that isn't an option, use the regular mode and add as much water as you would for brown rice. Best of all, you can combine them all and cook them together. Some will be a bit more chewy, some a bit more tender, but it works well enough that we make Mixed Cooked Grains all the time in the test kitchen.

I like to make Massaged Kale so when I throw a handful into a salad it isn’t squeaky-raw. I also find it's much less depressing to eat canned beans when I think of them as Marinated Big Beans and let them sit for days in the fridge with oil, vinegar, and chile flakes. Lastly, I find there are very few dishes that don’t get better with a dollop of lemony, savory yogurt. I make Lemon Yogurt by adding lemon zest, lemon juice, and salt right into the yogurt container so it's ready to go whenever I need it.

Mixed Roasted VegetablesCut 1 fennel bulb and 1 red onion through root end into 8 wedges each. Place on a rimmed baking sheet with 1½ lb. carrots, peeled, cut into 3" pieces. Drizzle generously with extra-virgin olive oil, season with salt, and toss to coat. Roast at 375° until browned and tender, 30–35 minutes. Substitute any vegetables you like, as long as the total volume fits on one rimmed baking sheet.

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Massaged KaleRemove ribs and stems from 1 large bunch of curly kale. Tear leaves into bite-size pieces and transfer to a medium bowl. Drizzle lightly with extra-virgin olive oil; season with salt. Toss, massaging gently with your hands to soften.
Do Ahead: Kale can be prepared 4 days ahead. Cover and chill.

Mixed Cooked GrainsIf you have a rice cooker, combine 2 cups mixed whole grains (such as whole farro or barley, spelt, rye, wheat berries, and/or black quinoa) and as much water as you would for brown rice. Cook on the "regular" setting if that’s an option. Ignore the "brown rice" option.
If you don’t have a rice cooker, cook grains in a medium pot of boiling salted water until al dente. Drain.